Language of Flowers
by clara-eloise
Summary: In this little Scottish village they call it the 'Jacob Black' effect when the handsome local gardener makes the ladies swoon. But can Bella Cullen, stuck in a loveless marriage and lonely on the grand Endrick Estate, possibly resist his charms?
1. Holly and Ivy

_You are only a local if you are born here_, Bella thinks. _Perhaps if he'd married someone from round here it would have turned out differently. _She is standing at the large bay window, taking down the last of the Christmas decorations – holly and ivy from the garden, red berries now wrinkled at the end of the season. It's twelfth night, and life in the Cullen household seems especially dreary on this grey Scottish winter morning. It doesn't help that it's been so mild: already the spring bulbs are pushing their noses through the soil in an attempt at early bloom. _Poor things. They don't know that worse weather will be on the way before spring comes properly to Endrick Estate._

Bella sighs and thinks about Arizona: pink mottled rocks, heat haze and cactus flowers. It's where she was born. She only has to open her mouth in this small Scottish village for everyone to instantly know she doesn't belong. She's a curiosity here in the rural central Highlands, in a population primarily white and Scottish. The people here can trace their ancestors back to the Jacobites. Most of the villagers have been tied to Endrick Estate for over two centuries, one way or another. At one time, this would have thrilled her: the sense of history, of belonging. It was something that Edward desperately wanted her to be a part of.

Bella walks through the empty rooms of Endrick Hall, a black cat winding its way through her legs. She makes her way to the panelled entrance hall with its gilded mirrors and sumptuous couches, pulls on her Hunter boots from the rack. Vaguely from further rooms above she can hear the noise of Mrs Cope hoovering. Bella imagines the housekeeper intent on her work, red hair neatly in place, glasses pushed firmly back on her nose, huffing and puffing on the stairs so that every speck of dust is lifted in order to ensure the ready praise of Mr Cullen. Bella smiles.

"Mrs Cullen."

"Oh, hello Coleman. Just getting my coat."

James Coleman - part Butler, part administrator - opens a tall cupboard and reaches inside for what he deems the appropriate garment – a Barbour coat lined with checked fleece. He is tall and thin, with an intelligent face and high domed forehead with thinning hair, compensated by his recent growth of a luxurious beard. Bella likes him immensely, although once upon a time his ministrations made her uncomfortable. She had been, at least when she first came to the estate, an independent American woman.

Coleman helps her on with the coat.

"Going anywhere far?"

Bella sighs. She knows he is just trying to plan the morning, be of service, but she wishes for once that she could walk the length of a room without stating her purpose.

"Just going to compost the last of the foliage."

Coleman hesitates, then nods. He know better now than to offer to do it for her. He's at least partly aware of how helpless Bella feels having others do things for her all the time. _No real job. No real life. Just a prize ornament rattling around a stone hall. _She pushes the familiar litany to the back of her mind and steps through the great oak doors that Coleman holds open for her.

"Jacob Black will be here at ten o'clock." He murmurs at her back.

"I'll be in the garden."

Bella crunches her way across the gravel, past the great stone urns of sculpted yew and through bare tunnel of pleached hornbeams. The grounds are extensive, with wild woods and fields for grazing sheep and cows, but her favourite areas are the vegetable gardens and the lawns far below, hiding from the grounds in a relatively sunny spot, looking out across to Ben Ledi, the hill that marks for her where the Highlands begin, capped with snow today.

It is here that Edward had a treehouse built for their children. High in the arms of an enormous beech tree, spiral staircase snaking its way around the trunk. The exterior is round and clad in green shingles, topped with a cedar roof complete with a chimney for the wood burning stove inside. It was meant as a playroom, but since no children have appeared, has been converted into a hideaway for Bella.

She makes a cup of tea with her small kettle, opens a pack of oatmeal biscuits, and prepares and lights a small fire, which is soon burning merrily. Settles in her red armchair and picks up a gardening book: 'The Country Cottage Garden.' Loses herself for a good half hour in possible designs and planting ideas, then stops, sighs. Looks at the clock on the wall as it slowly tick tick ticks away the morning. It's only a quarter to ten. If she could only _do _something, it would be so much easier.

When she had met Edward at Glasgow University on her years exchange from the University of Texas, Austin, she had been an English major; he a Management postgraduate. Those had been the best days. In the west end of the city, walking through the park together under a blue dusk, drinking coffee in their favourite coffee shop, Tinderbox, squeezing him into her tiny bed in her tenement flat with her noisy foreign exchange student flatmates. She'd fallen so hard for him that it had seemed like nothing to throw in her degree, uproot from her family and friends back home, move to this beautiful country she'd discovered and marry a Scotsman. Even when he told her about the estate, that he'd be expected to run it with his father, Carlisle, she'd been only overjoyed to find that he could provide a home for them. Back then she'd had dreams about doing a postgraduate herself, in Education. Becoming an English teacher.

Back when she had no idea what it meant to be a Cullen.

"Hello? Bella?"

A cheery voice calls from down below.

_He's early._

Bella jumps up from her chair and throws open the door to the treehouse. Down below, Jacob Black is standing, arms folded and looking up at her on the balcony of the treehouse, grinning widely.

"Good morning!" He has a smile that lights up the dull day. Bella knows it's not really for her, especially, he's just like this for everyone. Jacob Black has always had the sunniest of dispositions. It's part of the reason he's built up such a successful landscape gardening business. _Everyone_ likes Jacob: man, woman, cat or dog.

"Well hello. Thank you for coming. I was just looking over some ideas. Would you like to see the area I was telling you about on the phone, or would you rather have a cup of tea?" Bella speaks too fast, bites her lip. For goodness sake, she's a married woman ten year older than him. Surely she should be immune to what the local girls giggle about in the pub: _The Jacob Black effect. _

He just grins lazily and looks annoyingly comfortable. "Whatever you like, Bella."

_Thank goodness he doesn't call me Mrs Cullen. _

They walk across to a sunny area of sloping grass. Bella finds herself glancing at Jacob, clocking his moss green fleece and dark denims. It's January and he still has a slight tan, from working year round outside rather than from any sunbed, she thinks.

"Well, this is it. Is it big enough do you think?" For a moment she is anxious, wondering if he'll think her plans stupid, frivolous.

"Sure. Easily. In fact it will be a lot of work to have a garden finished by the summer, if that's when you would like visitors."

"Well, yes, ideally. I'd like to open for the National Garden scheme, and had it in mind that it would be a garden suitable for disabled people. The hospital for ex-servicemen and women doesn't have much of an extensive ground, and I thought about running a bus between here and there a couple of times a week, serving tea and cake…well. Maybe it's a bit of a pipe dream."

Bella stops and laughs nervously. She's said more of her plans than she's even told Edward. Jacob is looking at her intently.

"That sounds great. My friend Jared works at the hospital. He's always complaining about the lack of space…it would need to be wheelchair friendly…right from the gates onwards. It would mean some hard landscaping – wide paths, ramps, and also access to toilet facilities too."

"Yes – I had thought about that. The entrance over there –" Bella gestures to an area at the side of the hall – leads to cloakrooms and two bathrooms. There's even a room to serve tea and coffee in bad weather, but, well – I've not really talked that over with Edward yet." Bella trails off, not wanting to admit how little of these plans she's actually discussed with her husband.

"Shall I measure the garden area, then we can talk a bit more?" Jacob suggests. "I'll just get my bag of tricks from the truck." His smile again, makes Bella want to get her cheque book out straight away. As she watches him saunter away, whistling merrily to himself, she shakes her head. _No wonder he's got a booming business in the middle of a recession. _

Later, up in the treehouse, Bella puts another log on the fire and fetches a mug for Jacob – one of her favourite Emma Bridgewater bird mugs. He gets the blackbird, she the swan. She frets over biscuits, eventually puts a selection on a plate. Jacob Black is sitting on the rug, watching her with amusement as she flusters about.

"Sorry there's only one chair. I don't often have company," Bella explains. What she doesn't tell him is that the treehouse is her own personal space. Nobody, not even Edward, comes here. But this conversation with Jacob Black is not one she wants to have at the hall, in front of Mrs Cope and Coleman.

"I'm comfortable on the floor." Jacob sits easily. He's taken off his wellingtons and left them on the balcony outside. He looks oddly vulnerable in his socks, like a little boy all of a sudden.

_He __**is **__a little boy compared to you._

"I remember when I first came to Endrick, you were still at school." Bella blurts out. _Oh God. Don't say that to him. You sound ancient. _But she's started now, so tries to repair the damage. "You used to do the local community garden in the Reading Room, didn't you, even back then? And now, your own business. It must be great." She rolls her eyes inwardly at herself. _Totally lame, Bella._

"Yeah, I wasn't the most academic. School was okay, but I always preferred being outside getting my hands dirty. Even when I was wee my Dad would find me out in the dirt, making mud pies." He smiles at the memory.

"How is Billy?" Bella asks.

Everyone knows the Black family, just as everyone knows everyone else's business in this small village. Billy had run the landscape garden business with his teenage son until a fall from a tree had left him in a wheelchair. Jacob has kept the name on though, on the side of his pale blue truck: _Black & Son Gardening Company. _

"He's great. Spending a week with relatives near Inverness. Fishing. He's a happy man."

"Has he ever fished in the lake here? Edward tells me that we have trout, but it's so underused, I couldn't tell you what's in there. We'd be glad to have him try and see what he can find."

"I'm sure Billy would love that. And once we've got wheelchair access…"

"Of course." Bella pauses, feels like she's said too much. "Well, would you like to see some ideas for the garden?"

"Please," Jacob sips his tea.

Bella hesitates, then opens her Cottage gardens book and pulls out a sheaf of paper.

"Please don't laugh at me. I wasn't even going to show anyone these. It's just that it might be easier for you to see what I was thinking of, rather than just telling you. I'm not the best at explaining myself sometimes."

Jacob nods, looking over the first page. It's a schematic of the garden, drawn to scale on graph paper in Bella's neat hand, paths outlined and flower beds shaped like petals of a flower around a central circular dais.

"Wow. This is really professional. You did this yourself? I'm impressed." Jacob's enthusiasm is so obviously genuine that Bella flushes.

Jacob looks over the next few pages, the really embarrassing ones, of her drawings, pastels and paintings of ideas for flower planting combinations. He stops at one particular pastel sketch of tulips and euphorbia.

"That's stunning. I love tulips." He says simply.

"Yeah, me too."

Jacob hands the papers back to Bella carefully.

"No, you can keep them if it helps you to plan…I mean, if you are willing to take the job on. I don't mean to assume…I know how busy you are."

"I _am _busy."

_Oh._

"But I think I could manage it, perhaps working here three days a week. I've just taken on Seth Clearwater because we're so swamped. He can manage the smaller jobs, but something like this would be one I'd like to manage myself. Plus, it's close to my heart. I like it, Bella."

For a moment Jacob's dark brown eyes flit onto hers and pause. Bella meets them for perhaps a beat too long, then glances away. Then he's on his feet, papers still in hand, and slipping his boots back on. Before she knows it, he's waving a cheery goodbye. "No, you stay there, I'll see myself out. I'll be in and out of here enough…"

She watches him as he leaves, a dark figure who seems nonetheless to glow brightly in her mind. Bella holds her empty swan mug and leans her cheek on the doorframe of the treehouse. Her stomach is churning and she feels giddy and light all of a sudden.

_Ridiculous. This feeling. You are in danger of making a fool of yourself, Bella. It's a garden, nothing more. And he's your new gardener._

Her heart soars involuntarily.

_Jacob Black._

_Her gardener!_


	2. Hellebores

Bella's made dinner. She's had a pleasant morning shopping at the market, floating about the stalls of flowers, home-baking and vegetables. The fishmonger from Crieff sold her some fresh crab, and she picked up some red cabbage and bacon to make a hearty winter minestrone. Lastly, some of Edward's favourite pistachio meringues made by Dianne, the local baking goddess.

The market had been Esme, Edward's mother's idea, just before she and Carlisle set up home in Perthshire. Esme was always the one with good ideas, and she saw that local markets were becoming more popular – why not set one up on the Estate? Now Wednesday and Thursday mornings were teeming with locals and people from further afield.

Bella stirs the pot of minestrone, smelling the red wine and chicken stock at the heart of the dish. Esme. She misses her mother and father-in-law greatly. It always seems in her memories of Endrick Hall a bit of a watershed – after those first five years where she was desperately trying to make it work with Edward – take a part in the running of the Estate, conceive a child, get to know the local community. She'd been as shocked as anyone when Carlisle announced that he and Esme would be moving North "to give them some space." Bella had protested that there was no need for 'space,' in a house this size, that she was perfectly happy with the living arrangements and would not be driving them out of their home. However, Carlisle and Esme seemed happy with the new challenge of a grand house in the countryside full of deer and rivers.

"And how is Mrs Cullen?" she'd been asked that morning, by Anne McInnes, a bumptious pensioner involved in the Horticultural society. Bella knew of whom Mrs McInnes was referring to. "Ach, she's sore missed," the older lady insinuated.

It had not gone unnoticed to Bella that they blamed her for driving out her much loved in-laws.

_Maybe_, Bella muses, as she grates parmesan_, there is some truth to that._ She suspects that Carlisle and Esme could see trouble in paradise, wanted to leave them to their IVF and tears and perhaps see them on the other side of the problems when they could return and find grandchildren running through the gardens of the Estate. In that, Bella thinks glumly, she'd been a big disappointment. It would be better if Edward's sister, Alice and her husband Jasper, with their clan of four children were responsible for running the Estate.

She hears the front door open, and Coleman's voice as he helps Edward off with his coat. "Blustery day."

"Just blowing itself out after the storms."

She hears Edward make his way to the drawing room, pick up a paper; Mrs Cope's voice as she bustles around him; the clink of the decanter as she pours his favourite red wine; Brewster's bark of joy as he realises his master is home.

She waits for him to settle in, and carefully prepares the crab salad: squeezing lime over lettuce leaves and adding a sprinkle of paprika. Once the soup is simmering gently she removes her apron and hangs it over the Aga.

"Edward's home" Mrs Cope announces, somewhat reproachfully to her as she enters the kitchen. Before Bella can object, Mrs Cope has a cleaning cloth in her hand and is wiping up the surfaces after Bella, as if to say _what a mess you've made in here in my clean kitchen. _

"I can do that-" Bella starts to object, then stops herself. She knows what Edward would say: _You'll be doing Mrs Cope out of a job, Bella. We have a responsibility to employ her to cook and oversee the house. _She's been playing 'I can do that' for years.

She'd appreciated it at first, that he didn't want her to be the 'Little Woman' of the house – such an old-fashioned idea that most modern women like her would shudder at anyway. Still, once the novelty of being looked after so attentively wore off, she somehow longed to be able to do some baking, or wipe down her own work surfaces, or iron her own clothes without feeling guilty. Mrs Cope had a word for that: _"You are thrawn, Bella. Pure thrawn."_ The Scots always knew how to take words like 'stubborn' and give them extra layers of meaning.

Sighing, Bella makes her way through the house to where she knows Edward will be relaxing. There he is, long limbed and handsome, sprawled on a sofa with his reading glasses perched on his nose. He glances up as she comes in.

"Hiya. How was your day? Shelly says you've made dinner."

There it is, the note of reproach in his voice.

"Mm. It was fine thanks. The hellebores are starting to bud in the birch wood. It's lovely down there, but some of the trees are over."

"Yes, it's the same all over after the storms. A whole copse of pine trees down on the east bank. The dairy roof damaged, and fences all over the place. Morris McArthur found a whole pile of our sheep loose on his land this morning."

"Long day then." Bella pauses. "I wish there was something I could do to help."

"You do help. You help Coleman with the running of the place, fill in the forms and answer the phones. That's enough for anyone."

They both know that every part of that statement is not true. Bella remembers again those first five years of marriage when she'd tried to find a role for herself on the Estate. Edward had rather cuttingly said to her: "Bella, you've got an Arts degree, or at least part of one. You are hardly qualified to be running Endrick estate. You would get laughed at."

"Then let me finish my degree, train as a teacher…"

"Oh, there's no need for that. Besides, you'll be busy enough soon running about after little people."

The little people, Bella reflects, that never came.

They eat in the casual dining room instead of the formal – Bella's choice. Mrs Cope has already set the table and is bringing out the crab salad, which Bella notices, she's liberally sprinkled with parsley.

"I wanted to tell you about the plans for the garden."

"Mm-hm."

"Jacob Black was round earlier in the week." Bella takes a deep breath. "He thinks the sloping lawn area would be nice for a cottage garden."

"Well that's good," Edward smiles at her. "That will keep you out of trouble for a while, planning that."

"Yes, I thought so too."

There is a quiet time while they both eat. Edward compliments the minestrone, and then Bella goes into the kitchen to surprise him with the meringues. As she enters the enormous cream and white pantry she is just in time to see Mrs Cope shoving the meringues into the bin.

"What are you doing!?" Bella is horrified.

Mrs Cope straightens, turns and looks grim.

"Mouldy. The meringues," she accuses.

"They're not mouldy. It's pistachios!" Bella protests. She sits down at the large wooden table, sighs and rubs her forehead.

"Can I get you anything else?" Mrs Cope's voice is softer, humbler.

"Just a cup of tea Mrs. Cope. Earl Gray if you don't mind."

Later, with a mug of tea in her hand, Bella grabs a torch from underneath the sink and scoots out the side entrance, not even bothering with a coat. She shuts the door behind her carefully, so nobody hears. Look at her, _sneaking out._ She darts through the side garden with its clipped box foliage shaped like chickens and pheasants and onto the thin daffodil lawn that edges the gravel drive. Quickly now, into the birch forest, and then she's down on hands and knees in the leaf mould, her fingers searching for evergreen leaves. _There._

The hellebores are just peeping out, bulbous tips showing a gleam of yellow. Any flower that promises to bud at this time of year. _Brave little things. _They hold secret promises with their downturned heads that must be cupped and lifted like shy maidens to expose the beauty of their patterns: purple, pale yellow, cream, spring green, speckled and mottled like a freckled face.

Bella sits there, in the torchlight, puts her head in her hands and cries.


	3. Snowdrops

Jacob Black is in his truck with the music blaring and the windows down, his arm pumping a rhythm out the window in the general direction of the universe. Seth sits beside him in the driver's seat, howling tunelessly along to Kings of Leon. They are on their way back from Stirling with a truck load of turf. Jacob doesn't normally take the road past the safari park, but he can deal with it now. He's no longer that kid. Still, when he passes the layby where she pulled out and was hit by a truck, he sends a jolt from his heart to wherever his Mum is now, if anywhere. And sings a little louder.

Later in the day he heads home past the iron gates of the Endrick Estate and along the village main street. It's a blink and you miss it kind of place – primary school, two pubs (the posh one and the not so posh one – guess which he likes), a butcher, a deli, a post office/grocer's shop and a blacksmiths. He parks his truck out front of the cottage where he and Billy live and takes his boots off at the front door. He's a paragon of filth today.

Inside he smells battered fish cooking and his stomach starts to rumble.

"Be right there, Dad."

In the shower, he takes a brush to his body, works soap into his feet and under his nails. He hates wearing gardening gloves except for really heavy duty tasks. Even nettles don't sting him anymore his hands are so calloused. He hates leaving dirt under his nails though – coming home from work and getting clean means it's the end of the day.

"Hey son, pull down some plates, will you?"

Jacob sighs. He's gone and put them up on the plate rack again.

"Sorry Dad, my fault."

"S'all right. I just went and ate at the deli today. Saw Mike Newton again. He was asking after you." Billy says this with a smile and Jacob rolls his eyes.

"That guy won't give up."

"Well he knows a good business when he sees one," Billy says with a hint of pride.

"Well, he knows I'm not selling, and business couldn't be better."

"Started work yet at Endrick Hall?"

"Nope. Tomorrow's the first day. A lot of turf to mark out, although the plans are there. Bella Cullen seems to know what she wants, anyway."

"Well, so long as you make sure _Mr_ Cullen is happy to pay the bill."

"Dad…"

Billy raises his hand in defence, squirts ketchup onto his plate.

"I'm just saying. You know that American woman can't so much as sneeze by herself. He's got her well and truly holed up there in that big house and that's a fact."

Jacob harrumphs. Since when was Billy the arbiter of all human nature?

"Pub tonight?"

"Yeah."

The local pub quiz was an institution that the Black father and son had bought into since Jacob was old enough to go out drinking. Names were drawn at random, so you could find yourself sharing a team with any three others, but since the night mostly attracted regulars, there were few surprises to be had. However, to his dismay, that night Jacob found himself in a team with Mike Newton, and the local hairdresser, Jessica Stanley. Luckily his old pal Quil Ateara made up the quartet. Jessica and he were old gossip – he'd had a brief high school fling with her which certainly had meant nothing to him, but Mike Newton had held a grudge ever since. Jessica was considered to be his property – to everyone else's eyes except hers it seemed, and truth be told he saw an uncomfortable evening ahead. Newton wasn't a bad guy, just a bit of a gimp.

"So, Black, can we rely on you for music?"

"Uh sure, I guess."

"Jessica, TV questions?"

"Well, ok then."

"Quil, not sure what your speciality is, but I'll handle the hard ones."

Quil rolled his eyes and briefly made the universal sign for wanker behind Newton's back.

They kicked off with a music round, and between Jacob and Quil's extensive knowledge of anything guitar based they were on sure ground. The low beamed room was warmed by the coal fire, and Jacob and Quil were on pints of lager. Jessica even helped out with her knowledge of 90's girl bands.

"So I hear you got a new contract with the Cullens," Newton raised his eyebrows, as if in surprise.

"Yes, we're busy enough. I've just taken on Seth Clearwater as help." Jacob grits his teeth in anticipation of the monologue that is surely on the way about the wonders of working for Newton's Outdoor World.

"And you are working for _Mrs_ Cullen? That is a surprise."

"Oh?"

"Well, she's a bit of a recluse isn't she?" Mike was obviously fishing.

"Yeah, I've not seen her since Endrick Fayre Day last year. She hardly ever goes out anymore, they say. And she's only ever been to have her hair cut at the salon once." Jessica's voice becomes a little petulant at this.

"I'm sure Jacob will bring her out of her shell. If his reputation with the ladies is anything to go by." Newton smirks at Jessica.

Jacob forces himself to take a breath. "I'm going to get another round."

_If I don't stop talking to Newton I'll probably punch his face. _

It is pretty unfair, really. Jacob blames it on the show 'Desperate Housewives.' He's always having to put up with insinuations about him 'servicing the local ladies.' It's not so bad when it's his own mates just having a laugh, but Newton is a gossip, and that kind of talk is bad for business. As he orders drinks at the bar from Brian, Jacob shakes his head in disbelief. He's far too busy up to his neck in muck and concrete to be bothering about chasing middle aged women.

When he returns from the bar it's the general knowledge round, and he rather aggressively gives his opinion on the answers to the political, geographic and historical questions. Nails them all, and wins the free drinks vouchers for his team.

_Now who is the smug git, Newton,_ he crows to himself, back to his usual smiling self.

The next morning is Jacob's first day at Endrick Hall. As he is buzzed in on the intercom at the gate he sees a lucky sign: a gleam of white at the side of the road. Unsure of himself, he gets out the truck and goes to look. Sure enough, the first snowdrops have appeared, just ready to burst out in clusters all down the driveway. Wow, only the 10th of January. He smiles brightly. Winter seems vanquished when the snowdrops begin.

Bella is waiting nervously on the steps of the hall, checking her watch every few minutes. _When did he say he'd be here again? _She's unsure of what is expected of her. Will he just get on with it so that she won't even know he's there? Will she take him cups of tea throughout the day? Should she (a brave thought here) ask to help? Because, honestly, she can think of nothing better than being allowed to work on this project with him. It's something that Edward would never dream of asking her.

As the time passes, Bella feels foolish standing outside, forces herself to go back in and wait in the hallway, at least until she hears the arrival of his truck. She finds herself in front of the gilded mirror, studying her reflection. She wears a lot more make-up than she did ten years ago. Well, she is thirty-four years old. She has a tram line wrinkle on her forehead and redness around the sides of her nose that never used to be there. She needs to use concealer now, to hide dark shadows under her eyes. She thinks about how hard she was on herself ten years ago. What did she know then about her body, about herself?

That was the best she would ever be. Anyway, what did it matter. He wasn't here for her, just for a little piece of ground.

Jacob stands in the rain, measuring out the grass with sticks and twine. He decides he likes the slope – most gardeners wouldn't so much, but it's enough to be able to give some layers of interest when looked back on at the bottom of the garden, yet not enough of an incline to cause problems with wheelchairs. He laughs to himself.

"What's so funny?" Bella appears with a cup of tea at his elbow.

"Oh, just imagining my Dad losing control of his wheelchair in your new garden." Jacob chuckles.

Bella's eyebrows raise in alarm. "Oh no, is the site too steep?"

"No, no, we can easily wind the paths down so that it's easy access. I was just letting my imagination run away with myself. Bad habit."

They sip tea together and discuss plans for the garden. Bella is keen to use some trees, but it's tricky to agree on which ones would not end up outgrowing their positions.

"Apple trees are amazing," Bella comments.

"Well we could espalier them, create little rooms to explore. Blossom in the spring-"

"-fruit in the autumn." Bella muses. "Yes, that would work. Do you think that I might be able to assist a bit when it comes to the planting?" Her voice is full of hope.

"Sure" Jacob says easily. "We can go plant shopping nearer the time. There are some great local nurseries." He begins to expound upon the various merits of one place and another, and before they know in they've been lost in conversation for near on an hour.

"I'm sorry," Bella apologises, her chocolate brown eyes regretful. "I've kept you talking too long when you must have so much to do."

"No, it's good," Jacob protests. "Today is a planning day. Tomorrow is when the big machines come out to play." He grins gleefully and Bella finds herself laughing along. She is still smiling when she heads in for lunch, feeling warmer and lighter than she has for a very long time.

Jacob looks after her as she leaves. He's thinking about what his Dad, and Jessica had said about her. She didn't seem like a recluse to him. He could even, under other circumstances, think of her as a fragile sort of beautiful. Tiny, too thin and big eyed. She looked different to everyone around here, that was for sure.

By mid-afternoon Jacob has finished up. There's a real chill in the air and it's getting dark. He puts his tools in the back of the truck and switches on the headlamps. As he's pulling down the driveway, they illuminate the snowdrops, just waiting to come out. He has a childish notion to pick a bunch, knock on the door of the hall and give them to Bella. She maybe hasn't seen that the snowdrops are out yet. Then he snorts a laugh. What a twat he is. Giving snowdrops to Bella Cullen? That would really fuel the very same rumours that prats like Newton were just waiting to spread around the village.

Instead, he presses the exit button at the gate and makes his way home, watching the north star appear just above the horizon, below the sliver of a new moon.


	4. Crocuses

The mist is lying low in the valley as Bella watches the sunrise out of her bedroom window. Light rises, the pinkness of the morning illuminating the carpet of crocuses on the front lawn: purple, yellow and white dots.

Behind her, Edward is finishing off a boiled egg from his breakfast tray as he sits up in their four poster bed.

"Bella, did you hear me?" Edward's voice rises crossly.

"Sorry." She turns back to the bed. That's happened a lot lately to her – tuning out.

"If Jasper comes home to the estate, it would be more company for you, and that would be a good thing, Alice and the children being around, wouldn't it? The little ones love it here…the space…running around."

Bella bites her lip, turns back to the window. She knows it makes sense. The house is too big for them. Jasper has a family, with sons and daughters to ensure the future of the Estate.

"So you are giving up?" She says softly.

Edward sighs. "It's just…gone on too long. Aren't you tired? Maybe we should face facts and get on with living our lives."

"You might still pass on the estate to your children, Edward. The problem might be me, not you. Who knows, with another wife-"

Edward slams the egg spoon down on the silver tray.

"-Don't be ridiculous."

The bed sheets are thrown off, and Edward wraps his dressing gown around him, pads away in his slippers to the bathroom.

Later in the morning, Bella spends an hour filling black bags to throw out. Empties the bathroom cabinet of all her herbal pills from the 'Witchy' lady in Braco whom Alice had recommended: black cohosh, agnus castus, chasteberry, flaxseed oil. Tips the rest of the endless supplements she'd taken over the years into the rubbish bag: fish oils, vitamins, creams. Grabs the fertility stones Esme had given her from her dresser, throws it in alongside an Aphrodite bracelet and a fertile flame aromatherapy candle. Next, the shelf-full of books is attacked. Books on healthy eating, dream study, listening to your body, Chinese Medicine…

_Enough_, Bella thinks.

Enough of being told all the things you were doing wrong. If Edward is giving up, then so is she.

Dragging two full bags down the carpeted stairs, she heads off down the quiet side-corridor, out to the door she imagines will make a decent disabled entrance for toilets. Onto the crunch of gravel and pulling along the plastic bags like two reluctant toddlers.

Two headlamps beam through the morning mist, tip and jolt over the humps in the road and rattle across the cattle grid.

Jacob is early.

In frustration, Bella heaves one bag up and over into the tall wheelie-bin. Yet when she tries to lift the second, it weighs too much and rips jaggedly, spilling its contents onto the ground. Hastily, she tries to gather up the plethora of shameful objects on the ground, but it's too late: the car door is slamming and Jacob is calling out a cheery _Good Morning Bella, can I help you there?_

Before he can see too much, Bella throws a couple of crystals into the bin, picks up the remainder of the ripped bag and hoists it over the side of the bin in desperation.

_There!_

She turns to see that Jacob has collected up a book that has gone astray. _'Inconceivable: A Woman's Triumph over Despair and Statistics.' _He hold it in his hand for a moment, as if weighing its value.

Then Jacob chucks the book in the wheelie-bin, slams the lid, and takes her arm with a grin.

"C'mon Bella, I brought Angus to show you today. I bet you would love a go on him."

Bella is so surprised at the sudden contact – his warmth even through his winter jacket, the cheekily casual manner – she allows herself to be led to the truck in a state of confusion.

"Meet Angus," Jacob announces with a flourish, and stands proudly at the rear of the truck, where a shiny yellow mini-digger is raised up on the flat bed.

"He's going to make your new garden today…but first, shall we have coffee?" Jacob pulls a thermos flask from the passenger's seat of the truck. Bella can't help but smile.

"I have biscuits in the treehouse."

Jacob gently blows on the kindling where a tiny spark is growing and devouring scraps of paper in the wood burning stove.

"Reminds me of camping when I was a Boy Scout. We used to have to learn to light fires in the pouring rain, from wet wood."

"Is that even possible?"

"Sure. There's a trick. Petroleum jelly and cotton wool. Tiny sticks to start with gathered from beneath trees and bushes – where the rain has not been so bad – then gradually building up larger and larger until you have a proper fire." Jacob gestures with his large hands, breaks off small sticks from the kindling to demonstrate. "I learned to start a fire with just a single match." He grins at his own child-like boast.

"We used to have camp fires in Arizona. The problem was never getting them started, more putting them out. They can go underground, you see – with woody soil and pine needles, so you always had to throw a bucket of water over them to make sure they had gone out."

"Wow, really? That's amazing." Jacob shakes his head.

There is a pause as he passes the thermos of coffee to Bella – hot and sweet – just the way she takes it.

"So, do you still have family over there?"

Bella shakes her head. "No, not in Arizona. My Mom moves around a lot with her husband, and my Dad lives in Washington State. I don't get back much."

"I would!" Jacob pronounces. "If I had the excuse, I'd love to travel. Never even been across the Scottish Border before."

"Really?" Bella is incredulous. "But that's only a couple of hours away."

"Well, I did nearly go, on a school trip, but then I had to have my appendix out…and then later Dad had his accident, and then I took over the business." Jacob shrugs and grins. "I'll go someday."

The fire begins to grow, and Jacob proudly puts on a log.

"Don't you miss the States?"

"Sure…" Bella can hardly begin to describe the chasm of homesickness that she feels. "Mostly for Charlie – my Dad. He's chief of Police in a little town called Forks. He has a house there I spent all my summers in, growing up. The town – well, it's quite like here, really. Everyone knows everyone. It rains a lot. Beautiful scenery…"

"It sounds like you'd like to go back."

"I'd love to go home!" Bella pauses. "I mean, this is home now, of course. Anyway, maybe I'll get to go soon, when Edward's sister moves in. I won't be needed much then with paperwork or answering the phone…"

She's babbling now. Jacob's looking at her with his deep brown eyes. The fire catches a glow from them. God, she's staring now. Jacob smiles, looks right back at her. He looks like he wants to say something, but then he blinks, looks away.

"Shall we get Angus started up?"

Bella spends the afternoon working with Jacob. He's serious about her learning to use Angus, and within minutes has shown her how to use the mini-digger, scraping the lawn away and rotating to dump the earth in a pile on the side.

"It's like being a kid again!" Bella says breathlessly. "I've not had so much fun in basically forever." Being around Jacob is like having a friend around to play when you were a kid. Okay, admittedly, he's also really easy on the eye, which Bella keeps trying to suppress. _He's just like this with everyone. I'm just a sad old woman paying someone to entertain them. It's like Edward said. This is just something to keep me busy. It's not real. He can't be real. _

And yet, when they sneak into the kitchen behind Mrs Cope's back and make sandwiches to eat at lunchtime in the treehouse, and Jacob smiles and touches her hand to see if she is too cold…then Bella really wishes that it could be real. As they lie on their bellies together on the rug on the treehouse floor, elbows propped up, poring over plans for the garden, making amendments to the paths, and calculating the trajectory of the paths to make sure they are not too steep…then Bella fantasises that she is his assistant in his company. That this is what they always do, and always will do, day after day. That Endrick estate belongs to Edward Cullen, and she and Jacob just work for him. And that tonight when he loads Angus into the truck, that she'll get in the passenger seat and they will roar away through the gates and away across the Scottish Border…

But it's then that the fantasy breaks down, because Bella can't imagine that part at all. Any sort of life after driving through the gates of Endrick Estate. Even through those gates she becomes Bella Cullen again. And the thought of her and Jacob out there, past those gates…well, it's laughable.

Sure enough, the darkness comes down too soon. Jacob waves goodbye and she's left standing beside a mound of turf and stones as he speeds down the driveway. A cloak of reality settles back on her shoulders as she turns back to the treehouse – the only place she can bear going right now. Inside, there is a tiny ember in the fire, and she sits and feeds it - wishing she could keep it going all night. The room feels different – full of Jacob and his presence. She wants to stay as long as possible and soak it up. He won't be back for three days as he's working on another – probably more important –job.

Then Bella realises that he has left something more than his presence behind. She picks up the green thermos flask and holds it in both hands. Ridiculously, hugs it to herself as she curls up on her sofa chair, pulls a blanket over her and begins to drowse in the glow of the fire.


	5. Daffodils

Suzy Sherman was cool. She played electric guitar and sang in a band. She was a pale white blonde - though you'd never know since she dyed her hair pink, or blue depending on her whim. She had a dirty laugh, read Beat poetry and drove a beat-up yellow van. She'd been adored by Jacob since they were friends at school, playing with Bunsen burners in the back of the science class or chucking wet spuds of toilet paper on the Maths classroom ceiling. Suzy never gave a crap, she was fearless when caught and just as easy-going as Jacob. When they started kissing and then more in each other bedrooms at age sixteen, Suzy said that she didn't want a boyfriend, she just wanted Jacob to be her best friend. That they were too similar anyway. Jacob wasn't sure he agreed, but this was Suzy, so he shrugged and went along with it all. An on/off (sometimes with Jacob, sometimes with other guys she met on tour) kind of romance that wasn't at all romantic, but that Jacob returned to time and again until he found himself in his mid-twenties and Suzy Sherman finally left on a cold winter morning to live in London. "I'll be back, Jake. I'll always be back." It was the only promise she ever really gave him.

"bout time" was all Billy said, when he heard Suzy was going to London. "Now, go and get me a paper and a packet of polo mints."

And so life went on.

Jacob realised that Suzy had given him a good excuse not to look around the village for another girl. He didn't even bother – who could compare to Suzy? Sweet girls who served him in the deli, or the newsagents would smile softly and look at him hopefully as he counted out pennies from Billy's savings jar. They all looked the same to him. Schoolgirls chorused "Hi Jake" as he passed by them, a gaggle of blushes and giggles. He'd never liked those sorts of girls even when he was in school, and he wasn't going to start being one of those creepy guys who cruised around in cars blaring out the mating call of loud dance music, charming schoolgirls into deserted country lanes. And Suzy had been a shield. After she left the comments began – he was in his twenties, when was he going to settle down and find himself a girl? Even Jared kept trying to get him to go on double dates with himself and Kim, as if somehow he felt sorry for Jacob.

Maybe it was in all this madness that this thing with Bella had started, Jacob mused, as he was driving his truck back from the stone yard. _Thing? What do you mean Thing?_ As if, somehow, she was involved with his weird fantasies. A married woman. A client, for God's sake. He'd become his own worst cliché. That's what Suzy leaving had done to him. When had it started, he wondered? These feelings? Slowly, like frost melting…or was it the time she had come to his house to return his flask? Jacob could still remember every detail…

He opens the door and she's standing there, in an expensive looking camel coat and a blue scarf. Brown eyes wider than he's ever seen. "Bella, what are you doing here?" Jacob stupidly cannot hide his surprise. Not that she would be at his door, obviously returning his flask, but that she would be out, beyond the gates of the estate, in the village itself. "Come on in, it's freezing."

"No, I just stopped by…I'm sorry…you left this, and I just thought you would need it before I saw you next." She's already holding out the flask for him, ready to inch away and off into the starry night. Her breath is making dragons in the air. Her face too-pale and heart-shaped and so very beautiful and all Jacob can think of is _please don't go away, please come in. What can I do to _ _make you stay?_

"Hey, why don't you have a coffee? You could speak to Billy about the garden. He'd be an excellent person to ask about access." And so Bella finds herself at the Black kitchen table, joining in a game of cards, with a blue vase of new baby daffodils on the sideboard – so incongruous in a house without a mother. Jacob makes a proper cafetiere of coffee with grounds from the deli – none of that powdered stuff for Bella – while she speaks to Billy. Her voice is gentle, musical, next to his father's gruff Scots voice. As Jacob deals cards and Bella talks enthusiastically about her plans for the garden – as if Billy doesn't already know – it's all he's talked about for weeks – he watches his Dad soften and melt under the gaze of those chocolate eyes. Soon he's joking about his legs and fussing with his shirt collar. "If my son had told me we were having a guest…" He glares at Jacob and Jacob grins and looks at Bella, who smiles back at him. Jacob is grateful that Billy runs such a tight ship – surfaces gleaming and dinner dishes tidied away. Their small house cannot compare to the big one at Endrick Estate, but it's cosy and he's proud of it.

"Such a lovely room," Bella sighs, looking around at the William Morris wallpaper, the old wooden furniture and burnished fishermen's lantern.

Billy bristles with pride."Aye, that was my Sarah. We've kept it just as she liked."

"I don't like to see too much change either," Bella agrees. "Home should be home. When I visited Charlie every summer, my bedroom would be just the same – untouched. Same row of cactus on the windowsill, same purple duvet covers, same embarrassing drawings on the walls from when I was little…" She shrugs and smiles and sips her coffee, trying to hide a blush.

They play cards till late – till Billy is yawning and way past his bedtime but so obviously enjoying the company. Bella looks regretfully at the clock. "I'm sorry. I've stayed too long."

"Not at all. You are just in time to see Jupiter. Jacob, take her out and show her from the deck before she goes. You must see this Bella. It's the telescope Jacob gave me for Christmas. What a beaut. Now if you young folks will excuse me…Bella." Billy nods and wheels himself away.

And so Jacob finds himself out on the wooden deck he constructed last summer, among ceramic pots that are filled with the scent of spring bulbs, seating Bella on Billy's 'Observatory Chair' and being quite sure that she must be able to hear his outrageously fast beating heart as she peers through looking for the planet. He can barely remember what is said, just that as he is swiveling the eyepiece he has to lean over her, and smells her hair – all wood smoke from the stove in the tree house – and touches her hand. God, actually has the excuse to touch her as he gently turns the dial to focus. "Is it clear?" Yes, that's what he says. He remembers now. And suddenly it's all too clear for him. And the sky and the stars are suddenly too close, too dizzying, and he steps back, aghast because he knows suddenly that she's there, under his skin, but totally out of reach. It makes him feel like he's actually going to throw up from the fire that seems to be climbing from his stomach up his clenching throat. And he realises he hasn't felt this level of grief – not since his mother's funeral. Yes, that was it, wasn't it? That night that began it all.

And he hasn't thought about Suzy Sherman once since then.


End file.
